


The Valiant Never Taste of Death

by QueenNeehola



Category: Black Clover - 田畠裕基 | Tabata Yuki
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Near Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 17:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15845634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenNeehola/pseuds/QueenNeehola
Summary: Marx’s heart stops for a moment, a mix-up of fear and faith inside him as he presses against the window, knowing there’s no chance he can see Julius from this distance but hoping anyway.  There are people talking to him but in that moment, he doesn’t hear them.  He doesn’t hear anything except the long, shuddering breath he forces himself to take.That was a risky move, even for Julius.  He’d be out of time energy after that.  He’d be vulnerable.  He’d be—





	The Valiant Never Taste of Death

**Author's Note:**

> **!!! spoilers for julius's battle with licht !!!**  
>  although it diverges pretty far from what happens in canon, i wrote this months ago just after That happened and i was in denial. i mean, i'm still in denial

The information comes in dribs and drabs.  With Marx’s communication magic still unable to get through to Julius himself, he has to rely on outside sources and witnesses.  The available brigade captains are en route but still far away, but one report gets back to Marx that Yami Sukehiro is hurtling towards the battle and likely to be the first to arrive.  That calms Marx somewhat, but his taut nerves wind painfully tighter with every new flash of light he sees.  His hands ball into fists, his palms sweating and a tremor running through his arms even as he keeps his expression as neutral as he can, opening up new relay lines and barking orders through them.

He wants to help.  He knows this _is_ how he helps, by keeping the flow of information running and directing the right people to the right places, but it doesn’t feel like it.  Right now, Julius is fighting alone.  And Marx wants to be with him.

 

And then, there’s a light bigger and brighter than the rest, covering the whole town.

And then, there’s a giant clock face winding backwards, a time shift – and the light disappears.

Marx’s heart stops for a moment, a mix-up of fear and faith inside him as he presses against the window, knowing there’s no chance he can see Julius from this distance but hoping anyway.  There are people talking to him but in that moment, he doesn’t hear them.  He doesn’t hear anything except the long, shuddering breath he forces himself to take.

That was a risky move, even for Julius.  He’d be out of time energy after that.  He’d be vulnerable.  He’d be—

 

The call comes in some minutes later.  Yami got there, but not fast enough.  He is exhausted and beat up.  Licht is gone.  And Julius—

Stabbed.  Gravely injured.  Being transported now.

Everything goes static, and suddenly Marx is outside of himself, watching in a distant, dreamlike state the colour draining from his own face, his eyes blowing wide.  There’s nothing but a word—a name—Julius—echoing through his head, but—

But.

He takes a breath and swallows it, feels the soles of his feet plant firmly on the ground again.  He opens a line to Owen.  “Already on my way,” Owen is saying, and Marx thanks the stars for him, and prays to them that it will be enough.

No reports of injured citizens.  Structural damage limited.  Captains informed and already assembling a team to go after Licht.  Communications in passage to the team infiltrating the base.  Marx checks off a to-do list inside his head, compiling the useful information he receives and filing it away for later, when it will matter.  Right now it doesn’t.

 

He bursts into the room where Julius is being—held, kept, _treated_ , and he can’t even see his Emperor for the team of medics surrounding him, Owen at their centre giving calm orders in a low voice.  Marx stays, silent and awkward and shaking, to the back of the room, listening and longing foolishly for Julius to wake up, to shoo the crowd away, to rewind time and heal his own wounds in a characteristically blasé way.

It doesn’t happen.

 

Finally the healers file out one by one, until only Owen is left by the Magic Emperor’s bedside.  Marx approaches.

Julius lies pallid and defenceless.  It looks wrong on him.  Marx half expects his eyes to open and a grin to split across his white lips as he laughs in that infuriating, endearing way of his.  _It was just a joke, Marx!  Did you really expect me to be taken out by something like that?_

That doesn’t happen, either.

“We’ve done all we can,” Owen says, closing his grimoire and tucking it into his jacket.  “It’s just a waiting game now to see when he wakes up.”

 _If he wakes up_ remains unsaid.

Owen leans a hand on Marx’s shoulder for a long minute, but Marx doesn’t look at him.  Doesn’t look at anything but the long, raised bump of healed scar tissue across Julius’s chest.  Marx’s face is vacant, his normally neat hair dishevelled and hanging in his eyes.  Eventually, Owen leaves too.

 

It’s only after he hears the door close that Marx lets his expression crack.  His knees buckle, and he grabs fistfuls of the clinical white sheets around Julius as the first, silent tears fall.

**Author's Note:**

> julius is alive in my heart and he's married to marx thanks for coming to my ted talk


End file.
